Republican mayoral candidate promotes muni Wi-Fi

By Esme Vos on October 2, 2009 in WiFi Deployments

Steve Kimatian, a Republican candidate for mayor in Syracuse, NY, wants the city to have Wi-Fi everywhere for free or a very low price. According to Kimatian, the city can fund the costs of deployment partially through federal funds. While the article discussing Kimatian’s plan does point out that there have been some successes and some failures among municipal wireless deployments, it cites Thomas Hazlett’s argument against muni Wi-Fi:

Municipal Wi-Fi projects often run into problems because the unlicensed radio frequencies they operate on require the use of low-power transmitters to avoid interfering with other users, resulting in spotty coverage, said law professor Thomas W. Hazlett of George Mason University, a former chief economist for the Federal Communications Commission. Meanwhile, companies such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T, which provide wireless Internet over exclusive, licensed frequencies, have signed up more than 50 million paying customers for their wireless data services. “It costs a lot. I pay $60 a month for my Verizon Wireless card,” Hazlett said. “You have to ask yourself, if it’s so easy to do this (municipal Wi-Fi), why don’t private companies jump in and do it?”

I would have used a different argument against muni Wi-Fi, notably that in too many instances, the municipal people who make decisions about which equipment to use and where to install the access points are poorly informed and fall prey to the dubious claims of equipment vendors. Another argument I would make against government involvement in general is that government agencies move like molasses. It takes them a LONG time to get anything done and the bureaucratic hurdles are immense.

But when it comes to infrastructure projects that have a long-term impact upon municipal operations and on residents’ quality of life — infrastructure that benefits everyone and creates more competitive markets — government has a role. I’m thinking here about fiber deployments (for open, neutral backhaul that all ISPs can access) and citywide wireless networks that can be used for public safety, smart grid applications, Internet access, and telemetry.

Hazlett’s arguments are off the mark because: (1) it does not take into account the most recent developments in Wi-Fi, notably, the arrival of 802.11n equipment which solves many of the problems faced by earlier citywide Wi-Fi networks; (2) he claims 3G networks are better than Wi-Fi, which is clearly not the case given the huge volume of complaints that companies like AT&T (and their counterparts abroad) have received from iPhone (and smartphone) users.

“Better” is in the eye of the beholder and is tied to price, especially during these difficult economic times. While Hazlett can afford to pay $60 a month, there are a lot of people cannot afford even a cable or DSL subscription. As the city of St. Cloud, Florida discovered, many of the people using the city’s free muni WiFi network are those who cannot afford to pay for Internet access at home. But, even those who can afford to pay $60 a month for cellular data plans say it’s not worth the money. This has nothing to do with licensed versus unlicensed frequencies.

What’s happening is that technological advances have completely sideswiped the carriers. People now use bandwidth-intensive applications on smartphones, a category of device that did not exist ten years ago. There are app stores like Apple’s that people can visit to download applications onto their devices — without needing the carrier’s permission (although there’s a dispute over WHO really told Apple to reject the Google Voice application for the iPhone — some claim it’s AT&T).

Ask anyone who has an iPhone if he or she would rather use 3G over Wi-Fi. Almost everyone I’ve talked to here in San Francisco who has an iPhone (and that’s a LOT of people) lament the fact that San Francisco never got around to deploying Wi-Fi everywhere. They tell me what a shame it is that they have to rely on AT&T’s expensive and lousy service. Many say they have no choice. But some are so fed up that they have gone as far as to cancel their AT&T service and just use an iPod Touch (with Wi-Fi) and a cheap prepaid phone card for voice calls.

Furthermore, as Kimatian says in the article, several cities have already figured out how to deploy municipal Wi-Fi networks that benefit both the city and users. I’ve always argued that cities need to build a robust network and use it for multiple purposes. Cities that have begun using Wi-Fi for municipal applications see significant cost savings. Those who deploy 802.11n networks in the future will see even more improvements.